CL | 1/8 Finals: FC Barcelona - Chelsea 4-1 agg.

real and bayern dont have obsession with keeping the ball, they are okay with less possession then opposition team, real have CB, LB, who can decide match on their own, and best midfield since barca trio, they have casimeiro IN who will bring any player down if its needeed, they dont play soft and doesnt care about beauty




edit: barca chase players like verratti, arthur, instead vidal, matuidi, kante and similar players, we read here how pefect barca midfield would be alena-busi-coutinho or similar, and attack dembele-suarez-messi, no one can defend, but its all about attack right, like lesson wasnt learned during pep and after him, with greatest attacking trio msn

What croats above me are saying comes down to philosophy not tactics, if we played 4-5-1, 4-3-3 Barca would play similar. Now, the burning question then is: is our philosophy dated and should be replaced or not?
We have players that CAN play the way BBZ is describing, we can even score headers and pump ball in the box but that's not something Barca will do currently.
The answer to that is not easy as with this type of play, with good coach and tactics, I think we can hurt Bayern, City, Real and similar teams very badly but WE WILL ALWAYS struggle against teams like Chelski. Even when we played on top of our Pep era we struggled with them.
So, it's either time for radical new approach or Valverde actually did great and maneged to get great result for return leg (last year I think we would fell apart after their goal and end up loosing 3:0).

BBZ8800 said:

Last 5 years:
Barcelona
= winner, semifinal, quarters, quarters, quarters
Bayern:
= winner, semifinal, semifinal, semifinal, quarters
Real:
= winner, winner, winner, semis, semis

Real 5 semis in the last five years.
Bayern 4 semis in the last five years.
Barca 2 semis in the last five years.

Yet, Real and Bayern don't have Messi and cheating codes.
And they have to play with mortal players.

When you take that into the account, imo, it is clear that lately Real and Bayern have a superior tactics for Champions league matches against big boys and against physical teams and parked buses.

Both Real and Bayern have technical teams.
Both of them have more muscles in midfield.
Both of them have attackers (Lewa, Benzema, Cr8200) who can score with feet and head.

Both Real and Bayern can score:
1. Through the middle, like Barca
2. After crosses, unlike Barca
3. After corners, unlike Barca
4. After longshots, unlike Barca bar Messi

These teams have a several different options for a CL where majority of big teams will park a bus and crowd a middle.

On the other hand, Barca have only one idea how to play: pass and move around a box and wait for a hole to open which often never happens against teams like Atletico, Juve, Chelsea, Bayern and similar.

Also, if we are sterile now, with Messi in our team, imagine how sterile we will be in post-Messi's era and how far behind top teams we will drop.

But when some of us suggest that we should evolve and move away from "a classic Barca's style", people are getting heart attacks and strokes here.

That's our style.
That's our Dna, they'll reply.

We are quitte stubborn as a club and as a fanbase in some aspects.

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Lol. You're jumping from one to other... Now you're balming Pep...

Your workhorse midfield theory has proven to be futile now it's time to jump onto the next thing. Taller, stronger strikers that are good with the head...

This was a decent result, albeit not the best performance. We have to consider the fact that Chelsea had more time to rest too. Remember, Barcelona fans, that we are 7 points clear in La Liga, we're in the final of CDR and just got 1-1 away to Chelsea. Barca are in a good position so far this season. Consider also that February is usually Barca's worst month every year. They've played 2 games a week since January, and now they will have some more rest in the next 2 weeks. Home against Girona on Saturday, then they will have one week's rest before Las Palmas away. Key players can revitalize, and maybe Valverde will try to incorporate Dembele more. I believe we got through the worst form of the year, and we're still doing really well on all fronts. Now we wait for some better form and energy. Visca Barca!

Atletico reached 2 finals in 3 years juve also, their main focus is not to concede goal and in attack we will see, lets compare their team with barca who played 1 final since 2011, uncomparable, yes juve and atletico lost in both finals, atletico from more complete team real and juve vs barca who played that year some great counter attacking football and then they lost vs real who outplayed them in every aspect, real have winning formula for that competition, juve and atletico have formula to go far in the competition, what about barca? Far from it, it has to be outstanding season to reach semis or final, otherwise they are out in quarters last years, and they never spended more money then now

MessiCam said:

Lol. You're jumping from one to other... Now you're balming Pep...

Your workhorse midfield theory has proven to be futile now it's time to jump onto the next thing. Taller, stronger strikers that are good with the head...

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Paulinho is not good enough workhorse, with player like kante or vidal, things would look better

You guys also have to realise that Madrid and Bayern have gotten lucky with the draw up until the semis stage in numerous years.

Madrid have played teams like CSKA Moscow, APOEL, Schalke, Galatasaray, Wolfsburg, Napoli

Bayern have played teams like Basel, Marseille, Shaktar, Porto, Benfica

Whereas Barça have had to play teams like Leverkusen, Milan (twice), PSG (thrice), Man City (twice), Atleti (twice), Arsenal, Juventus

It's easy to say these teams made the semi's without looking at how they got there.

Barça have never got walkover opponents in the knockout rounds. Every other team appears to get their fair share though.

MessiCam said:

You guys also have to realise that Madrid and Bayern have gotten lucky with the draw up until the semis stage.

Madrid have played teams like CSKA Moscow, APOEL, Schalke, Galatasaray, Wolfsburg, Napoli

Bayern have played teams like Basel, Marseille, Shaktar, Porto, Benfica

Whereas Barça have had to play teams like Leverkusen, Milan (twice), PSG (thrice), Man City (twice), Atleti (twice), Arsenal, Juventus

It's easy to say these teams made the semi's without looking at how they got there.

Barça have never got walkover opponents in the knockout rounds. Every other team appears to get their fair share though.

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Seems like we never have easy path in playoffs indeed.

MessiCam said:

Leverkusen

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Milan

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Arsenal

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Enough with the excuses. We should be doing much better in the CL than we have these past 5 years.

Lelouch vi Britannia said:

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What's so funny? Have you seen the jokes that Madrid and Bayern get to play?

MessiCam said:

What's so funny? Have you seen the jokes that Madrid and Bayern get to play?

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Right, Bayern/Madrid would totally have struggled against the mighty Milan/Chelsea

Lelouch vi Britannia said:

Right, Bayern/Madrid would totally have struggled against the mighty Milan/Chelsea

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They're orders of magnitude better than CSKA Moscow, APOEL, Schalke, Galatasaray, Wolfsburg, Basel, Marseille, Shaktar, Porto, Benfica...

Schalke nearly knocked Madrid out in 14/15 too. Same with Wolfsburg the following year...

Getting an away goal was a bonus. Now Chelsea have to come at us at the Camp Nou as they have to score and will not park the bus chasing a goal. I am not saying we'll smash them in the second leg, but we'll beat them.

Lelouch vi Britannia said:

We'll get past Chelsea thanks to Messi's away goal, but we're headed for another QF exit if we continue playing like this.

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It's not the coach's fault, our style of play doesn't work against top teams that park the bus.

Last year when we had MSN and we were supposed to be more unpredictable than we are now: 0 shots on target against PSG away, 6-1 against PSG at home but 2 were penalties and 1 an own goal. 1 goal was a free kick from Neymar and one came from his assist to Sergi Roberto, but now we don't have Neymar anymore. Against Juve 3-0 in Turin and 0 shots on target at Camp Nou, the only chances we had over the two legs came from a Messi pass.

So more or less we were slow and predictable against top sides that park the bus even last year when we had MSN and we played 4-3-3, the only difference is that last year we conceded 7 goals and this year 1 thanks to Valverde.

Stoichkov1 said:

It's not the coach's fault, our style of play doesn't work against top teams that park the bus.

Last year when we had MSN and we were supposed to be more unpredictable than we are now: 0 shots on target against PSG away, 6-1 against PSG at home but 2 were penalties and 1 an own goal. 1 goal was a free kick from Neymar and one came from his assist to Sergi Roberto, but now we don't have Neymar anymore. Against Juve 3-0 in Turin and 0 shots on target at Camp Nou, the only chances we had over the two legs came from a Messi pass.

So more or less we were slow and predictable against top sides that park the bus even last year when we had MSN and we played 4-3-3, the only difference is that last year we conceded 7 goals and this year 1 thanks to Valverde.

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You mean thanks to the upright... Because ter Stegen was beaten all ends up on all occasions. Barcelona are not the only team that's takes a beating every now and then in the Chanmpions League away from home.

Dortmund put 4 past Madrid (4-1) in 12/13, Arsenal put 2 past Bayern (2-0). Dortmund put 2 past Madrid (2-0) in 13/14, Madrid put 4 past Bayern (4-0). Barcelona gave Bayern 3 (3-0) in 14/15. Wolfsburg beat Madrid 2-0 in 15/16 too.

To win the Champions League you need to play really well and have a huge dose of luck.

anyone who's been paying attention to what i've been saying ALL SEASON will agree with me...

- obviously I care about result but also about our game play..GAME PLAY, GAME PLAY, GAME PLAY

- I've seen us struggling against teams, struggling against teams we should be beating....

- Severally, throughout the season i said our game play was terrible, lack of creation, players being out of form, no pressure, no enthusiasm.. never criticized Suarez btw b/c i knew he was going through a phase...but Rakitic is still the same player.. he's not world class..

- You guys didn't notice a trend all season?...terrible first half and turning it up in the 2nd half? why...over and over and over again, even against shitty teams.. much of why we succeeded was b/c of Messi and Suarez, NOT Valverde..

- i wasn't venting just because of the game against chelsea but the fucking trend...over the past weeks we have been struggling.. from Real soceiedad, Espanyol, Alaves, Valencia, Getafe, Eibar... we've been struggling and MANAGING, yes MANAGING to wins some of these games with terrible performances.. We can't keep on having terrible performances and hope to score somehow..

- Barca Fans need to open their eyes to these....

- Also, not a fan of him just outrightly leaving players out the team for no reason.. For example, Nelson Semedo... he was blazing at the beginning of the season, didn't have one bad performance but yet after one great performance sometimes he completely left him out the team the next game.. why? what does that do to his confidence? you answer that..

- while other players such as Vidal, Gomes, Dennis Suarez have been given opportunities over and over they have disappointed over and over again.. i mean over and over again.. r u guys blind or oblivious to this?

- He has to turn this around or we have a bigger embarrassment waiting for us....